Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, JUNE 20, 1941. “FRIENDSHIP” UNDER PRESSURE.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 June 1941, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, JUNE 20, 1941. “FRIENDSHIP” UNDER PRESSURE.

from the fact that the signature of the Nazi dictatorship to any treaty is worthless, the conclusion of a pact of friendship between Germany and Turkey gives no great cause for concern. In happier circumstances. Turkey no doubt would have taken her part actively with tin* nations which are lighting to re-establish justice and liberty in the world. As events have turned, however, Germany, as has been pointed out in London, is in a position to exert direct military pressure on the Turkish Government. Turkey in those difficult conditions appears to have done verv well. No obvious exception can be taken to the new treaty, under which “each of the signatories binds itself to respect the integrity and inviolability of the other’s national territories and not to resort to any measures, direct or indirect, aimed at the other.” So far at least as the treaty is concerned, Turkey has not become the enslaved servitor of Germany, hut retains her national rights intact —amongst them the right to honour her existing commitments, including those into which she has entered under the Anglo-Turkish Treaty. Under that treaty, Turkey is pledged to aid Britain in the event of aggression by any European Power (oilier than Russia) leading to war in the Mediterranean. As matters stand, Turkey evidently cannot actively carry out this obligation, but she will bo aiding Britain in a far from unimportant-degree if she is able to keep her territory inviolate and maintain her independence. Whatever weakness the situation holds is due not to anything the German-Turkish pact of friendship is reported to embody, but to Nazi Germany’s complete, lack of any semblance of morality in international and other dealings. There is every reason to fear that in Nazi eyes the pact represents merely the first, step in a campaign of aggression against Turkey. It is not obvious, however, that Turkey, in existing circumstances, had any alternative to signing the pact. The ultimate possibilities the situation holds are affected in an important degree not only by Turkey’s treaty relations with Britain, but by her traditional friendship with Russia. Resistance by the Soviet Union to a Nazi attack might be expected to make an endspeedily of the German-Turkish pact of friendship. (On the other hand, if the Soviet chooses to make sweeping concessions to Germany rather than face the risks of war, the position of Turkey will be made more than ever difficult. ALTERNATIVE SERVICE. jgIMPLE equity and justice appear to demand that men who are exempted from military service on grounds of conscientious objection should be required to perform equivalent service at military rates of pay. The only alternative evidently is to allow objectors to gain a considerable and altogether unwarranted advantage over their fellow-citizens of similar standing and fitness. A great weight of public opinion may therefore be expected to concur in the support given by the council of the Wellington Manufacturers’ Association to a resolution by the Christchurch Returned Soldiers’ Association asking the Government to implement the regulations on alternative service, seeking an immediate definition of the conditions of service, and urging that the alternative service be at soldiers’ rates of pay. An honest objection to military service certainly cannot connote a desire to profit economically in comparison with those who render that service, so that there; can be no question of inflicting injustice on a conscientious objector by putting him economically on a level with the soldier. It might perhaps be contended that in a precise adjustment account should be taken of the fact that the soldieh is clothed and fed at the expense of the State. That, however, logically would lead to a comparison in detail between the conditions of war service and those of alternative service. The whole question of alternative service decidedly is one on which an early and explicit pronouncement should be made bv the Government.